


three.

by idaate



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 08:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10658565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: [ MAJOR V3 SPOILERS ]Three try to stop the Mastermind, and three fail.





	three.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this art piece by Lina! https://twitter.com/linalinanaaa/status/848282113031815168

Amami’s done this before. The discovery of the Mastermind’s lair is new, though new to what he’s not exactly sure. Akamatsu stands by his side when they do, and the boy strokes his chin, eyes narrowed as he flirts through memories like fingers pushing down on the spines of crumbling books.

“Well, what are we going to do about this?” Akamatsu asks, and Amami’s grin grows even stiffer.

It’s a trap. He knows it’s a trap, because the stars have never aligned quite so perfectly, and he knows that expecting them to do in the future is definitely not something that’s going to happen soon. Amami is a lot of things - a mystery, a failure, to name just a few of the edgier ones - but a cliche is something that he hopes to avoid.

So instead, he elects on some throwaway line from a throwaway script. “We can set a trap.” He decides, fighting fire with fire because that always works out like a charm. “Telling others would certainly be a mistake, don’t you agree? There would be such a widespread panic that the Mastermind could slip away like nothing happened. Our only lead would be lost, and then,” The boy pops his lips. “where would that leave us? It’d leave us dead, because--”

“Thanks for answering your own question.” Akamatsu notes with a tender grin, and Amami matches it with a smirk of his own.

“--because there’d be nothing left for us. The first motive would go into effect, and those who were forced into the killing game - which is, as you might note, everyone save for the Mastermind themself - will die. There’s absolutely no way around that fact.”

Or at least, that’s what he says, but something about the motive messes with his mind, like he’s trying to fit a square shape through a circular hole.

Kaede toys with the cuff of her sleeve and stares at the ground. “So...what you’re saying is that we have to capture the Mastermind. Beat them at their own game, sort of.”

“Of course.” Amami says. “Ideally, we kill them. In fact, that’s probably the only thing we can do.” He touches his piercings absentmindedly. “A...a bowling ball would work, right? That can crush someone’s skull in. We can crush the Mastermind’s skull in, like a big ol’ ‘fuck you’ and then--”

He drones on and he can tell Akamatsu has zoned out a bit, but frankly, he has too.

Amami hopes that this time (this time) he can make it right.

 

.

 

When Kaede discovers Amami’s body, there’s a ringing in her ears and Saihara’s saying something like “are you alright” and “what’s got your face like that” and she almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The dent in Amami’s head was like a stamp, a big red stamp with the word ‘CANCELED’ on it, because wasn’t what their plan was? Canceled.

She mentally closes that folder and realizes that oh, whoops, they didn’t exactly plan for this to happen, did they? And talking to Amami was out of the question since he was, you know, dead, and oh my God he was dead _she had been speaking to him the other day and painted each other’s nails and he was dead dead dead_.

“Akamatsu-san!” Says Saihara, firmer, and she finds herself looking at the detective, his face painted in worry,

“We’re going to stop the Mastermind.” She says it with such a certainty that it surprises even her, and Saihara blinks.

“O-of course.” He stutters. “Though...the murderer should be dealt with first, correct?”

Saihara’s right, but that doesn’t chase away the feelings of anxiety that make knots in Kaede’s stomach as she glances in the direction of the Mastermind’s lair. There’s something in the air that makes her head light, and maybe it’s the fact that Amami’s dead or maybe it’s the fact that she’s realizing exactly how helpless she is against--

No. She inhales and tightens her hands into fists, staring in newfound determination at Amami’s body.

‘I’ll finish what you started’ is a phrase she doesn’t say aloud, but she knows (hopes) that Amami’s ghost can hear her.

“Or at the very least...I’ll get as far as I possibly can.”

“What?”

“N-nothing.”

She can feel Ouma’s gaze on her back.

 

.

 

The statue hangs upside down in Ouma’s room, and he balances an uncapped marker on his upper lip, staring at his whiteboard. He blinks, and he can feel his eyelids stay shut for just a millisecond too long, as if to say ‘oh are you planning on sleeping now, that certainly would be nice, yeah?’.

Ouma laughs dully. “Foolish.” He mutters, opening yet another bottle of Panta and attempting to drink it while keeping the marker balanced. He fails, and the marker falls, leaving an unpleasant streak down the side of his face. He chugs the entirety of the bottle before dropping it down on the ground, reaching down to pick the marker back up and instead opting to balance it between his fingers instead.

The whiteboard doesn’t seem to provide any new answers, though, not when he stares at it so long that it looks like he set it up to say that Hoshi murdered Akamatsu or some fucked up shit like that (cause who would murder akamatsu besides the mastermind, though maybe hoshi was the mastermind all along and-- oh, see? this sleep deprivation was really starting to mess with his head).

His eyes flicker between Kaede’s hairclip and Amami’s statue. After a moment, he leans over and pushes the statue, causing it to swing precariously over his bed. It keeps time.

Time.

That’s what he’s running out of. The clock started ticking the moment Kaede’s pendelum of a body began to hang over her keyboard, and all Ouma has done since then has waste time, waste time, waste time.

If he just had more time, then maybe, maybe there was a scenario where he could stand with the other survivors, bruised and broken and facing back but looking ahead, to the future. Then they’d have all the time in the world, time to recuperate and rejuvenate their relationships and he would learn the trades of Yumeno’s card tricks, of how to play a knife game without stabbig himself or Harukawa, of how Saihara’s mouth might taste.

If time was as common as the insults he could buckle out like lightly fried chips, then Ouma could look the Mastermind in the eye and take the step forward where Amami and Akamatsu had failed.

Amami’s foot picked itself off the ground, the beginning of a step that never really got anywhere. Akamatsu’s foot was stuck high in the air, held up by the same red string that strangled her to death. And Ouma’s foot--

It brushed the ground, so painfully close that Ouma could cry, cry genuinely, if he only knew how.

But just like everything else in life, time eluded Ouma, and the supreme leader stared at his whiteboard.

“The panta’s wearing off already, huh?” He hums. “It’s like a drug. When you use it too much, it loses effectiveness and you’ve got to up the dosage more and more and more and one day you just die.”

Something in the back of his mind asks him if hey, are you really talking about Panta there, but he’s already sifted around the garbage that’s his room and scrounged up another bottle. Unscrewing the cap, he lifts it up to the ceiling as a tired sort of salute.

“For those whom failed before me!” The monotony of his voice scares him a bit, but he dismisses it as the sugary beverage is already pouring itself down his throat, splashing onto his scarf. He’s learned how to trick everyone in his life, how to pull the wool over every single person in this damn prison, so he could lie to even himself, now.

If only the Mastermind themself was so easily fooled.

 

.

 

There are three people who try to stop her before anyone else even realizes that she even needed stopping, three people who fail in stopping her. The attempt is admirable at the very least, though, and Shirogane finds herself clapping in front of candle lit portraits.

“My kudos.” She hums, and the bear in her arms slips a little, causing her to stop clapping and readjust her position. “Except, not really. It was such a pain in the ass to deal with each of you, after all. I don’t know why I took so long with you, either.” She adds, motioning at Ouma’s portrait. “You should’ve been killed by Toujou instead of poor Hoshi. Ah, well, you were far more subtle in the fact that you wanted to die, I suppose. And our resident tennis player fought back in the end...so, I guess it was a mess for the both of you.”

She works her teeth over her lower lip. “Not like the dead can speak, though!” Shirogane finally settles. “One way or another, you both ended up six feet under. One of you was just far, far more annoying than the other.” Her gaze flirts over the portraits of Amami and Akamatsu. “Fits the trio, I suppose. I want to say that they’d have been proud, but who would be proud of the actions you took?”

There’s a strange noise that sounds a bit like an almost hiccup in the back of her throat, like the remnants of a good cry, and Shirogane has to pause and swallow that back. Oh gosh, embarrassing, right?

“Let’s see how well your classmates will fight in your memory, hmm?” She condones. “For the audience’s sake, I hope it’s an interesting discussion.”

Taking in a shuddering breath and stilling the shaking in her shoulders forcefully, Shirogane gets up from her kneeling position and begins preparing her strawberry blond wig.


End file.
